Election will set nation’s course for many years

November 6, 2012

Every national election is important to the future of the United States, not just to those of us who vote but also to our children and grandchildren.

But the election being held today is the most critical in recent memory. It will decide the direction our government takes for many years.

Most presidential elections are questions of how the philosophy of government understood and accepted by most Americans will be administered. That is, they involve disagreements not about fundamental policy but regarding how it will be pursued.

This time is different. Today, voters will decide whether the American ideal will be retained. Our tried and true philosophy is that government's function is to keep our country free while minimizing interference with the great engine that is our private sector economy - tens of millions of hard-working men and women, small business people who provide jobs and growth and a self-correcting system that encourages companies to serve consumers well.

We built that - the greatest, most successful system of providing prosperity for the most people possible ever devised.

Now, as has been demonstrated during the nearly four years of President Barack Obama's administration, an old, failed philosophy - of big government in control of every aspect of our economy and some facets of our lives once considered our business and ours alone - is being promoted.

Make no mistake about it: If Obama is re-elected and his fellow liberals continue to control the U.S. Senate, Americans will continue down the road of government control over our economy and, again, much of our private lives. The national health care law, Obama's insistence on using trillions of dollars for programs such as the failed "stimulus," and his demand that we use his preferred sources of energy, not what works, are proof of where we're headed if he remains in office.

As we have pointed out, presidential candidate Mitt Romney believes firmly in allowing Americans to make our own prosperity, in allowing the private sector - not Washington - to govern both our economy and our culture.

So yes, this election is important. It is not a matter of squabbling over how to make America work best - but of whether our government should be placed firmly in control.

Electing Mitt Romney as president can put Americans back in control and rein in our government. It is essential that that be done.